It is quite common for semi-conductor devices, such as a hybrid circuit formed on a ceramic substrate, to be enclosed in a plastic molded housing. The housing includes a header portion having electrical connection pins made from a terminal frame molded therein. Wirebonds are connected from one end of the electrical connection pins to contact pads or electrical leads of a hybrid circuit. The other end of the electrical connection pins extend out of the housing and header for connection to an external source in a manner known to those skilled in the art.
Heretofore, the header has been formed using a single-piece terminal frame including a plurality of parallel electrical connection fingers connected together along one end by a tie-bar. In such an operation, the single-piece terminal frame is placed in the mold cavity and directly molded into the header for the housing of the semi-conductor device. When the frame is placed in the mold, the tie-bar and a portion of each of the electrical connection fingers are positioned so that they will not be surrounded by the plastic of the header or housing. Once the header is molded around a portion of the electrical connection fingers, the housing is removed from the mold. Thereafter, the tie-bar portion of the terminal frame is punched and removed. After removing the tie-bar, the header then has a plurality of individual electrical connection pins available for connection to an external source. Thus, under this method of making the semi-conductor housing and header, additional tooling and additional steps are required to punch the terminal frame and remove the tie-bar. Further, punching the terminal frame to remove the tie-bar results in substantial wear to the punch tooling which must be frequently replaced.
Thus, heretofore there has been a need for a simple method of making a housing or header for connection to a semi-conductor device including trimming the terminal frame molded into the housing header.